Ravens Mt. Rushmore has few surprises

It wasn’t easy to get the Ravens’ Mt. Rushmore to 12 finalists. It was much easier to get it to four.

As unveiled last night on Pro Football Talk on NBCSN, they are Ray Lewis (duh), Jonathan Ogden (duh), Ozzie Newsome (duh), and Joe Flacco (not as duh).

PFT Planet took Ed Reed over Flacco, which isn’t an unreasonable choice. Still, Flacco’s arrival in 2008 sparked a run of five straight playoff appearances with at least one postseason win per year. And they won the Super Bowl in 2012 with Flacco named MVP after he made the ultimate contract-year, all-in gamble.

For the full discussion from last night’s show, click the thing down there.

The one possible explanation for putting Flacco over Reed is that Reed won’t be playing his entire career in Baltimore. I’m not saying it’s a strong argument or a fair one (I’d put Reed over Flacco too, despite Flacco’s accomplishments to date), but that’d be my guess to explain it.

Not that this place has much to begin with, but you lose any and all credibility taking a slightly above mediocre quarterback like Flacco over an all time great like Reed. That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen on here and I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous things on here.

Zero problems with Reed over Flacco. Reed’s a hall of famer, but Flacco had a more significant impact on the franchise. Five straight postseason trips in Flacco’s first five years. He and Boldin won the franchise’s second Super Bowl almost by themselves. Absolutely defensible choice.

Is anyone really surprised Baltimore fans picked Flacco over Reed? It’s been apparent for years that Baltimore has one of the NFL’s least intelligent fan bases and this only further confirms it.

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This is so hysterical it almost brought a team to my eye. Insulting an entire fan base’s intelligence while not having the reading comprehension to understand that Ravens fans DID choose Reed over Flacco. Bravo.

No art?
I guess bringing in the team to baltimore and laying the ground work for a consistent contender isn’t enough. Don’t forget where these ravens came from. He put those pieces in place. Mentored Steve and recognized ozzie as a genius early on.
He was also instrumental in bringing us MNF. Forget what he did to the browns. That happened to Baltimore when irsay moved the colts. but I dotn see the same animosity towards him that I see towards art.

Ozzie Newsome? Are we serious here? Name one great team in history and tell me the general manager! Oh yes, the ’85 bears, what a team there general manager was……. The ’67 Packers, Vince Lombardi? Yes! The general manager, not so much. How about all those great Buffalo teams of the 90s? Even in recent history many would have a tough time coming up with Bill Polian.
You just don’t put GMs on a team’s Mt. Rushmore!

relax buffobeel, you must not read too many raven comments. You see, they have kind of a wierd man-love for the Great Oz. Couple that with a collective delusion of grandeur, and there you have it. Other team fans are much more reasonable when it comes to their team.

Flacco over Reed is an absolute travesty. A middle of the road QB over one of the best NFL players of all time is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard of. This whole Mount Rushmore process has been pretty silly. I don’t understand the notion of having a fan vote if you’re going to totally ignore it. You’ve been wrong on many occasions.

Flacco over Reed? Please… This is a prime example of the media’s ridiculous over-emphasis on SB wins & performance over career performance when evaluating individual players in the “ultimate team game.”

Flacco may get there some day, but one SB MVP award doesn’t come close to trumping a decade of elite level performance by Ed Reed.

love flacco and he is clearly the best qb in ravens history. and someday he will probably be on the ravens mt rushmore. but for now it has to be reed. still trying to figure out who the murderer is…wasnt aware of anyone like that on the team. and crown…go back to your steelers posts. maybe we can go one side of the face greene and the other side steroids

If you’re thinking about it objectively and in terms of who has the overall greater impact on the team and the franchise, Flacco over Reed makes sense.

yeah Reed’s the greatest Safety ever, but in terms of impact on the Ravens franchise, the actual effect of that is about average at best. This team had the most dominant defense in 2000 and carried that tradition for a good decade turning 3 DCs into head coaches and making numerous players household names. On a list of players that includes Deion Sanders, Chris McAlister, Samari Rolle, Peter Boulware, Rod Woodson, Terell Suggs, Haloti Ngata, Ray Lewis, Adalius Thomas, Bart Scott, so on, etc. what is Ed Reed to the Ravens really besides “yet another beastly defensive player.”
Nobody’s saying Reed isnt accomplished, definitely is, but in terms of his effect on the franchise, he really just maintained status quo.

Joe Flacco on the other hand did 2 majorly important things to this team:
1) Ended a 12 year search for a legit quarterback and gave them a real competitive threat at the position for the first time ever which in turn

2) allowed the team to finally stop wasting picks and contracts on quarterbacks which consequently lead to

3) the strengthening of the team at other positions and the ability of the Ravens to finally evolve into a team that’s capable of competing at a high level in today’s game.

Remember that list of defensive guys i out up? try and come up with one HALF as long for the Ravens on the offensive side of the ball before Flacco got there. And im not talking about those old reliable, decent dudes like Todd Heap and Derrick Mason. I mean real bona fide offensive legend level players, the Calvin Johnson, Adrian Peterson level players.
You got Ogden, Jamal Lewis, Ray Rice, …maybe you could reach really hard and include Brandon Stokley. that’s it. (McNair was a one year rental basically, doesnt count).
Before Flacco, Ravens had the same plan year in and year out…pick up some crap QB from somewhere, pluck some old and broken WRs out of Free Agency somewhere, run some poor runningback through a brick wall pretty much every down, attempt a pass and hope your mediocre “weapons” can make a play when you really need it, and hope the defense’s stellar-ness outweighs Boller’s screw ups for the day.

When the Ravens picked up Flacco and had a guy who was actually capable of winning (say what you want about how supposedly “ok” or “mediocre” he was…that just shows you dont watch football, because nobody who knows who he’s been throwing to his whole career would say that), that allowed them to go after guys like Torrey Smith, Dennis Pitta, and Bernard Pierce.
And behold, the next time they happen to go to and win a superbowl…it coincidentally was the highest scoring one in NFL history.

Considering the historical roster, you’d be really hard pressed to say the Ravens Defensive legacy would be threatened by the absence of Reed (unless of course, you dont watch football). You cant at all make a similar statement about the Ravens past 5 years of success without Flacco.

“Still, Flacco’s arrival in 2008 sparked a run of five straight playoff appearances with at least one postseason win per year.”

Honestly, what a stupid thing to say. That’s not as bad as saying “my nephew was born in 2004, so he clearly helped end the curse of the bambino for the Boston Red Sox”. Correlation does not prove causation, and it’s pretty clear that the QB was not the main reason a defense/run oriented team won a playoff game in five straight years.

relax buffobeel, you must not read too many raven comments. You see, they have kind of a wierd man-love for the Great Oz. Couple that with a collective delusion of grandeur, and there you have it. Other team fans are much more reasonable when it comes to their team.

1. Never said Oz was a bum.
2. I probably am smarter than him, but not when it comes to football.
3. None of that means a GM should be on any team’s Mt Rushmore, especially your team with such limited franchise success. 2 SB’s are cute and all….

Ozzie Newsome? Are we serious here? Name one great team in history and tell me the general manager! Oh yes, the ’85 bears, what a team there general manager was……. The ’67 Packers, Vince Lombardi? Yes! The general manager, not so much. How about all those great Buffalo teams of the 90s? Even in recent history many would have a tough time coming up with Bill Polian.
You just don’t put GMs on a team’s Mt. Rushmore!

I’m in the mindset of leaving front-office types off these lists. Rather it should be about on-field accomplishments and impact on the franchise.

With that said, I can understand how Flacco makes the list. However, I stick with my man Jamal Lewis (in addition to Ray, Reed and JO). Jamal was a bad man with the rock in his hands. LB’s and DB’s alike used to just bounce off him. He also has a SB ring, scored a TD in that SB and has a 2000 yard rushing season on his resume. The defense sucked the life out of opposing teams and Jamal would control the clock. A formula that worked for many years.

Reed is a Texan.(duh) Flacco is far from being done. He said he was the best QB in the NFL. And I believe him. You can take down the Johnny U. statue and replace it. Just kidding about the statue. And owners are drooling over Ozzie right now. Just the way coaches did over Ray. Who cares if ignorant liars don’t like Ray. Most people, as I’ve found from experience, are stupid idiots. Ray made players cry. Ozzie made Polian whine like a bitch.

tkebean, Only people with lower intelligence resorts to insults and degradation to make an argument. It’s known as IGNORANCE. Look it up in the dictionary. If you can’t make an argument without being insulting, then you can’t make the argument. BALTIMORE fans are anything but stupid. We have an extremely diverse, well rounded fan base with people from all walks of life and economic classes. People with these many differences still find a way to come together as one and support our team ALWAYS whether they’re winning or losing. How many people from BALTIMORE do you even know?

Oh, our hero! The man in the white suit! Everybody loves an accessory-to-murder-kind-of-guy! I know I know, he didn’t do the stabbing, just got splashed during all that splashy stabbing and then tried to cover it up. Innocent enough. Who hasn’t been splashed while their buddies were stabbing someone to death, am I right?!

Idk why everyone is hatin’ on Flacco. He only gave us a championship with one of the best postseason performances in history. Yes Ed Reed was a great Raven, but that’s the key word,”WAS”. Flacco will continue to give us success even wihtout a not so great defense. I have no problems with Joe being up there